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Standing on Bathtub Reef Beach last week, I couldn't help but think: This is what it looks like when your tax dollars wash out to sea.

It's not really as bad as all that, said Martin County coastal engineer Kathy FitzPatrick. The $5.3 million beach renourishment project completed in June restored the dunes and a 100-space parking lot and renovated the pavilion. All were still standing proudly last week, fairly gleaming in the November sun.

But it also added 325,000 cubic yards of sand to the beach. And it's hard to tell how much of it, if any, is left. The beach looks as if Mother Nature took huge bites out of it, with a three-foot "cliff" caused by the erosion all the way back at the dune line.

Good to know, I guess. But the erosion is jarring, and of course it isn't limited to Bathtub Reef Beach. Blame it on Hurricane Matthew and an active hurricane season in general; blame it on recent high tides and high winds, blame it on the St. Lucie Inlet, blame it on all of the above and more.

But the bottom line is that Martin County's beaches — Florida's beaches — are washing away.

That was the conclusion reached by our USA TODAY Network partners at the Naples Daily News, which earlier this month published a big investigation into our "Shrinking Shores" and how state inaction, and lack of funding, may be making things worse.

Virtually every beach community throughout Florida is struggling to keep sand on those shrinking shores, which in some cases are shrinking up to 18 feet per year.

"More than a third of the state’s shoreline has lost ground over the past five decades," the report noted. "Florida’s brand, a key source of tourist revenue, is washing away."

Preserving it costs big money. According to figures compiled by the Naples Daily News, between 2006 and 2015, $19.8 million in state tax revenue was generated for beach renourishment in Martin County — and that's less than a third of the $65.5 million generated by Martin County itself to pay the tab.

Then there's development. The "Shrinking Shores" report points out the more we build along the coastline, the worse the situation gets, because having permitted coastal development, we have to protect it. Nearly two-thirds of all coastal building permits issued after 1989 are along beaches the DEP has already deemed critically eroded.

As always, money trumps common sense.

The "Shrinking Shores" report suggests Florida politicians have shirked their duty by not spending enough to beat back Mother Nature. But I came away thinking that spending millions every year to protect beaches that are destined to wash away anyway is akin to putting all our tax dollars in a big pile and setting it on fire.

Some can't help but wonder if some of that money could be put to more productive use. Indian Riverkeeper Marty Baum, for example, marvels at how the state shovels money at beach renourishment, even as the DEP considered pulling "Kilroy" monitors from the lagoon earlier this year because of a lack of money.

"Even a small chunk of that (renourishment) money could help us make a big difference" in the lagoon, Baum said. "I understand the beaches are important, but sea levels are rising and, at the very least, it's foolish to allow any more building" on barrier islands like Hutchison Island, he said.

But options are limited, said FitzPatrick. "You could retreat, but if you own property or have a park or an evacuation route like A1A or MacArthur Boulevard, that's probably not your first choice," she said.

"You've got beach renourishment, and you've got 'hardening' of some sort" — sea walls or jetties or some sort of hard surface on the beach instead of sand.

But "people don't come to Florida to sit on a pile of rocks. they come to sit on the beach," she said. And the environmental consequences are huge.

Still, costs can only increase. "Sand bypassing" alone — the process by which sand trapped by the St. Lucie Inlet is dredged every three to four years and distributed to beaches south — could eventually cost up $5 million annually, FitzPatrick said. That's on top of whatever beach renourishment projects need to be funded.

Factor in climate change and rising seas, and the cost of battling Mother Nature may increase exponentially. And for all of it, Bathtub Reef Beach may still look like a miniature version of the Cliffs of Dover.

But I suppose that if we want nice, relatively stable beaches, this a necessary use of tax dollars.

But you wonder, sometimes, if it's the wisest.

Gil Smart is a columnist for Treasure Coast Newspapers and a member of the Editorial Board. His columns reflect his opinion. Readers may reach him at gil.smart@tcpalm.com, by phone at 772-223-4741 or via Twitter at @TCPalmGilSmart.